


Who's got a black hoodie and doesn't want to have this conversation?

by NezumiPi



Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: Amnesia, Childhood Trauma, Coping, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Memory Loss, Other, Parent/Child Incest, Siblings, Trauma, spoilers for 4x07
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:14:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21701068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NezumiPi/pseuds/NezumiPi
Summary: Elliot has to tell Darlene eventually. Right? And make her shitty life even worse? That's the right thing to do, isn't it?TW: Extensive discussion of sexual abuse and exploitation of children.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 53





	Who's got a black hoodie and doesn't want to have this conversation?

Darlene leaned heavily on the doorframe. “Right before the hack, you said that something happened. I mean, _he_ said it. And he said you had to tell me yourself.”

“He shouldn’t have said that.” Elliot desperately wanted to put his hood up, but he knew that Darlene wouldn’t stand for it.

“Yeah, well, he did.” She sighed. “I told you how I got kidnapped by a lady who looked like Harry Potter’s aunt and uncle merged into one person,” she sighed again, “along with an FBI agent who was almost killed who apparently double clicks her personal mouse while staring at video of me. I told you that, now you tell me stuff.”

“It won’t…It’s not…”

“Is this one of those, ‘I don’t want you to worry’ things? Because it’s way too fucking late for that.”

Elliot’s thoughts raced. Not for the first time, he wished he could have simultaneous processes in his personal CPU, not the lagging, disjointed, linear cognition he was stuck with.

_How do you tell her this? She loves dad. She doesn’t remember dad, and not because her imaginary friend came to life and locked the memories away, just because she was too young. She was way too young. I was too young. How do you start the story? With Vera? With Mr. Robot? How do you say what happened? ‘Who’s got two thumbs and a recently-uncovered history of childhood sexual abuse? This guy.’_

“You don’t have to say, okay? But you can’t hold it in because you’re protecting me.”

Elliot finally managed to produce speech. “I know what mom had in her safety deposit box.”

“I thought you didn’t know about it.”

“I didn’t. But I know what she would have kept there.”

Darlene waited, restraining the impulse to shake her brother by the shoulders and scream at him to get to the goddamn point.

“Pictures. Mostly of me. But some of you and me together.”

“That’s…sweeter than I would have given her credit for.”

“They’re not nice pictures. They’re evidence.”

“Evidence of what?”

“Things were more analog in those days, but if anyone knew how to digitize a picture and save it, distribute it…”

“Elliot,” she said, at the midpoint between dread and miserable acceptance, “what are we doing in these pictures?”

“They’re mostly just me. I think…I think they were just for himself at first. And then…maybe he was selling them? Or trading? I don’t know. It would be me, or me and him. But if he was in it, he’d wear a mask. That stupid mask.”

“Wait, are you saying that dad molested you and made kiddie porn out of it?”

Elliot didn’t seem to hear her. “I guess whoever he was selling them to wanted something different. A boy and a girl. He tried to get Angela.”

“What? How?”

“He left a porn VHS in the tape player so it came on when we went to watch cartoons. He tried to say it was an accident but it was kind of interesting and wasn’t she curious but she just said it was gross. I don’t know if she ever said anything to her parents, but who would care? It was just a stupid accident, right?”

“And when he couldn’t get Angela, he went after me?”

“You were asleep, the time he took your picture. He gave you something. I think it was a pain killer, the kind that knocks you out. I kept telling myself you wouldn’t know. You were asleep.”

“I was four and I was asleep when my dad fucked me?” There was no way to tell exactly what emotion was in Darlene’s voice, only that it was unpleasant and there was a lot of it.

Elliot shook his head. They were both silent for a very long time. Elliot opened his mouth but did not speak, air clogging his throat as if unable to decide whether to exit. Finally, he rasped, “I did it.” His eyes widened as if he were surprised by his own words. “He told me what to do, where to stand, what to touch. He took the pictures.”

“Jesus, how long did this go on for?”

“Just the once. With you, just the once.”

“But it was more between you and him?”

Elliot nodded. “That went back…a long time. It was a secret. But after…with you, I told mom. That was the day with the snowman Kevin McAllister.”

It was, in retrospect, fairly amazing that Darlene had made it this far into the conversation without a panic attack. She remembered that day. Not in great detail, but she remembered the snowman and the camera – oh god the camera – and Elliot hiding her in the closet and their dad coming in and Elliot picking up the bat and jumping out the window and –

“I had Mr. Robot to protect me. He kept the memories from me until he couldn’t anymore. You didn’t have that. I didn’t want to be the one to tell you.”

“Why didn’t-“ Darlene gasped in between words “-mom turn him in to the police?”

Elliot shrugged hesitantly with only one shoulder. “He was nearly dead. It wasn’t long.”

“Then why not let him live out his last few days getting ass raped by some fucker with hepatitis and face tattoos? I mean, for fuck’s sake, it sounds like he fucking deserved it.”

Elliot didn’t answer. Who knew why their mother did the things she did. She hated their father, so it wasn’t love and loyalty, but that still left a whole universe of possible explanations with no way of narrowing down the solution space.

“You said Mr. Robot made you forget. What made you remember?”

“Oh, a drug lord kidnapped my therapist and made her talk to me about it so he could bond with me.”

“Our lives are so fucked up.”


End file.
